Weekend Of Climate Change Actions, Fun

The Oregon Republican Party might have elected climate change-denier and urine-sampler Art Robinson to be its chair, but these days most Oregonians understand that manmade climate change is changing our planet. Groups in Portland and Corvallis will be hosting anti-climate change “Draw the Line: Stop Keystone XL” events on Sept. 21, and in Eugene there will be a “Pancakes not Pipelines” fundraising breakfast.

The science, policies and protests are piling up. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) working group and synthesis report on the physical science basis for climate change will take place in Sweden Sept. 23-26 and provide a summary for policy makers. Avid newswatchers are seeing fracking equipment in Colorado submerged in floodwaters from an unseasonal storm as well as leaks from pipelines and oil extraction. And activists along the Columbia River and into Idaho and Montana are protesting megaloads of tar sands equipment.

Here in Oregon, activists such as Mary DeMocker will be participating in nationwide group 350.org’s Saturday events that will “tell President Obama that there is no turning back — to keep his climate promises, he has to stop Keystone XL and the tar sands.” DeMocker says there will be an anti-Keystone XL rally in Corvallis at noon Saturday at Fire Station #1, at the Northeast corner of Harrison Boulevard and 4th Street.

DeMocker, who is a freelance writer and harpist, will be providing the music for the Portland “Draw the Line” event with environmental ethicist Kathleen Dean Moore (see DeMocker’s interview with Moore in the May 29 issue of EW online). The Portland event starts at 2 pm and includes workshops. DeMocker says a 5 pm photo opportunity will include participants singing a climate song from Belgium. “It’s a polka, so we’ll play with that aspect and get some dancing going.” She says the group still needs an accordion player.

While Eugene doesn’t have a 350.org event listed as of press time, there is no shortage of climate activism in town. Also on Sept. 21, the 11 am - 2 pm $5 all-you-can-eat “Pancakes not Pipelines” breakfast at Wesley Foundation, 1236 Kincaid St., will raise funds for the Unist’ot’en Action Camp in Canada. The camp “is a resistance community whose purpose is to protect sovereign Wet’suwet’en territory from several proposed pipelines from the tar sands gigaproject and shale gas from hydraulic fracturing projects in the Peace River region,” according to the event’s facebook page.

For more info on the pancake breakfast go to http://wkly.ws/1k1. For more info on the “Draw the Line” rallies (or to host one) go to 350.org, and to volunteer to play the accordion, drop DeMocker a note at marydemocker@gmail.com. If you want to volunteer to give Art Robinson your pee for his scientific study of metabolites go to http://wkly.ws/1k2.

About the Author

Camilla Mortensen is associate editor and reporter at Eugene Weekly. She is also a folklorist and a community college and university instructor. She has two horses, an assortment of dogs, and lives in a 1975 Airstream trailer. Sometimes all these details collide in unforeseen ways.